Herefore, cameras have been known which can print simple characters or dates on a film as well as light information as desired by the user.
For example, as illustrated in FIG. 1, cameras have been provided with a character imprinting device which can be mounted within a camera body. Generally, such a device employs a light emitting lamp 12, a reflecting mirror 14 for changing the direction of light from the light emitting lamp 12 and a character-signal Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) 15. Usually, a module 16 is provided to mount the lamp 12, deflecting mirror 14 and character-signal LCD on a rear cover 11 of the camera while also shading the device from ambient light. In addition, a film presser 17 is attached to the rear cover 11 and a film 18 is moved passed the character-signal LCD 15. An outer-signal Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) 13 is also attached to the rear cover 11.
Referring to FIG. 2, the drive circuit for a character imprinting device as illustrated in FIG. 1 generally comprises: a micro-controller 21; a mode selecting switch block SW1--SW3 connected between a ground and an input terminal of the micro-controller 21; a light emitting lamp drive circuit 22 connected to an output terminal of the micro-controller 21 and, via an output terminal, to the light emitting lamp 12; and an LCD drive circuit 23 connected to an output terminal of the micro-controller 21 and, via an output terminal, to the outer-signal LCD 13 and character-signal LCD 15.
When a user intends to imprint characters, such as a data, time or a simple message on a film while a film is inserted, the user selects one of the modes displayed at the outer-signal LCD 13 via the operating mode selecting switches SW1--SW3. Secondly, depending on the signal of the mode selecting switches, the micro-controller 21 makes the outer-signal LCD 13 and the character-signal LCD 15 display the selected characters, through the LCD drive circuit 23 such as;
1) year, month, date PA1 2) month, date, year PA1 3) date, month,year PA1 4) date, time, minute PA1 5) simple Alphabets PA1 6) selecting mode off
Thirdly, one of the above mentioned display modes is selected and displayed at the character-signal LCD 15. The characters displayed at the character-signal LCD 15 are projected onto the film by the light emitted from the light emitting lamp 12 and reflected by the reflecting mirror 14. The characters are thus imprinted at a predetermined area of a photograph, generally at a lower right area.
However, character imprinting devices of the above type are relatively limited due to the use of an LCD device. In particular, intricate and elaborate characters or symbols cannot be readily expressed. Further, since a light emitting diode is usually used, the imprinted characters are not colored but rather are monochrome. Still further, since these devices use an LED and an LCD drive circuit, the devices have been too expensive to be employed in a general camera.